Ken Basin
Ken Basin, a entertainment lawyer and Harvard Law graduate from Los Angeles, California, was the last contestant on the 10th Anniversary Special of the U.S. version of the show on August 23, 2009. He achieved the unfortunate distinction of becoming the first person in the U.S. to miss the $1,000,000 question, thus losing $475,000 and walking away with a mere $25,000. In 2003, Basin was a contestant on Jeopardy's College Championship that year. He went to the semifinals only to be eliminated there and took home a consolation prize of $5,000. WWTBAM Run Fastest Finger Question Out of 10 contestants, 4 got it right, but Ken (with a time of 3.71 seconds) was the fastest to correctly answer A-B-D-C, making it into the Hot Seat. Ken's Run to the Million Ken had a hunch, but decided to use his last lifeline, Ask the Audience, with Yoo-hoo being the most voted answer (40%). Ken also thought it was Yoo-hoo, and after pondering for a minute if he would regret more losing $475,000 than not winning an additional $500,000, Ken decided to go with his hunch Yoo-hoo with 1 minute, 12 seconds remaining. Unfortunately, his hunch turned out to be wrong, as the correct answer was A: Fresca. Total Winnings: $25,000 Gallery Trivia *Ken became the first and only contestant to correctly answer the $500,000 question on the Clock Format (and the first one to do so since Lyn Payne in 2007). *He later became the first contestant to incorrectly answer the $1,000,000 question. *Ken lost the biggest amount of money ($475,000) in U.S. history, and the only U.S. contestant to lose $475,000. Under the old money tree, he would've been the first to lose $468,000 and leave with $32,000, so he lost an additional $7,000, due to The Walt Disney Company, the production company behind the U.S. version of Millionaire, reducing the monetary values for questions 10, 11, and 12. **Josina Reaves only lost $75,000 because she jumped her $250,000 and $500,000 questions, meaning she did not win those amounts. * Before showing the $1,000,000 question, Regis thought Ken was the first ever contestant to have Ask the Audience for the final question. In reality, John Carpenter, David Goodman, Jim Matthews, David Stewart, and Bernie Cullen, Steve Perry, Moe Cain, Lyn Payne also had Ask the Audience for their final question, with only the first was unused. Although, the latter was only hosted by Meredith Vieira. *Ken Basin is one of two major "horrible losses" to occur during the 10th Anniversary Celebration; the other is Ellen Gaines, who flunked out on her $1,000 question and left with absolutely nothing. Quotes *''Ken:'' In law school we would say that people who went to law school went there because they were risk-adverse and people who were risk loving went to business school. I went to law school. Maybe I should have gone to business school. *''Ken:'' I'm going to ask a favor. I'm going to ask the audience to start cheering in advance and just stop abruptly if I get it wrong because C, final answer! Give me a million dollars! *''Regis:'' No, it's not the final answer, you just lost a lot of money... It's Fresca! Fresca! References Basin, Ken Basin, Ken Category:$25,000 winners from the 10th Anniversary Celebration Category:$25,000 winners Category:Reached question 10 with all lifelines Category:Appeared on Jeopardy! Category:U.S. contestants from California